The summer of 2026 has not yet officially arrived, but the battle in the refrigerated sections of supermarkets and convenience stores has already begun early among a wave of new ready-to-drink players.
In previous years, major freshly made beverage giants focused on opening stores. This year, they have collectively pivoted, moving the battlefield from shopping mall counters to supermarket shelves.
This transition from "cups to bottles" marks the official upgrade of the freshly made beverage industry from being traffic-driven to efficiency-driven.
In 2026, the competitive focus of the freshly made beverage industry has shifted from "who has more stores" to "who can better occupy shelf space." This is not just a war among freshly made beverage players; it is a comprehensive battle across the entire beverage sector where one move affects the whole.
**Collectively Storming the Shelves**
The entry of Luckin Coffee Inc. was the trigger point for this ready-to-drink shelf space competition.
On April 28, Luckin Coffee officially launched its "Ready-to-Enjoy Coffee" bottled line, introducing three products: Raw Coconut Latte, Classic Americano, and Grapefruit C Americano. Each 300ml bottle is priced between 6 and 7 yuan. This pricing strategically positions itself in the middle of the traditional ready-to-drink coffee price range of 4-12 yuan, avoiding the low end occupied by Nongfu Spring's "Tan Bing" while differentiating from the premium segment of Starbucks' ready-to-drink offerings. This is a familiar value-for-money strategy for Luckin Coffee.
Official data shows that within 24 hours of its launch, sales of Luckin Coffee's Ready-to-Enjoy Coffee exceeded 1 million bottles through online channels. To achieve rapid distribution, Luckin Coffee completed the selection of its first batch of provincial-level distributors starting in April, adopting an almost open attitude, allowing any convenience store or mom-and-pop shop to sell the products, attempting to use scale to gain channel influence.
In fact, beyond Luckin Coffee, the shelf space strategies of leading freshly made beverage brands have been quietly active for some time.
Heytea was the earliest new tea beverage brand to experiment with bottled ready-to-drink products. In June 2020, it launched its first bottled NFC juice, followed by sparkling water the next month. According to Qunce Consumer Research's "2025 China Tea Beverage Industry Report," its bottled business revenue reached 800 million yuan in 2025, with growth exceeding 50%. Its product range covers multiple categories including milk tea, fruit and vegetable juices, and sugar-free tea.
Nayuki's Tea followed suit in October 2020, launching bottled sparkling water, but it failed to gain quick traction. In 2023, the company revived its bottled strategy, focusing on low-sugar lemon tea and collaborating with membership stores like Sam's Club for customized products. However, in 2025, Nayuki's ready-to-drink business significantly contracted, with full-year bottled beverage revenue of 179 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of nearly 39%.
"King of Downgrading" Mixue Bingcheng has not missed this opportunity either. Its brand Luckin Coffee, leveraging its network of over ten thousand stores, fully rolled out bottled coffee and tea beverages in 2026, priced between 3 and 5 yuan, targeting convenience stores and small community shops in lower-tier markets, continuing to solidify its low-price positioning in these areas.
Guming previously tested affordable bottled juices on a small scale and formally pushed into the market in 2026, launching HPP cold-pressed juices and low-sugar tea, fully entering supermarket and convenience store channels.
From premium to affordable, from coffee to tea, major tea and coffee giants are comprehensively deploying bottled ready-to-drink products. Shelf space has become the primary battleground for the industry in 2026.
**Seeking Change as Growth Peaks**
The collective bet on shelf space by freshly made beverage brands stems from the fact that the freshly made segment is gradually hitting a growth ceiling.
The slowdown in growth for new tea beverages, in particular, has become increasingly evident. From 2017 to 2021, industry growth remained between 20% and 30%. After the golden period of rapid expansion, growth rates have continued to decline. Data from iMedia Consulting shows that industry growth dropped to 6.4% in 2024 and further to 5.7% in 2025, approaching a stage of "competition for existing market share."
Especially in major cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen, the density of coffee and tea shops has almost reached market capacity limits. Therefore, in recent years, major brands have shifted their store expansion focus to lower-tier markets. However, while these markets offer incremental growth, rising rents and labor costs have significantly reduced single-store profitability compared to before.
While expansion has stalled, a wave of store closures has quietly begun. According to iMedia Consulting data, in 2025, the freshly made tea beverage industry saw 118,000 new store openings but 157,000 closures, resulting in a net decrease of 39,000 stores. This marks the first time the industry has experienced negative store growth.
The situation for freshly made coffee is largely similar to that of tea beverages. Growth relies on store expansion, while single-store profitability continues to face pressure.
Data from NCBD (Canbaodian) shows that in 2025, China's freshly made coffee market size reached 217.7 billion yuan, with growth maintained around 15%. While this still appears relatively fast, this growth is primarily driven by the expansive store networks of leading brands like Luckin Coffee, Cotti Coffee, and Luckin Coffee.
The 9.9 yuan coffee price war between Luckin Coffee and Cotti Coffee has lasted for two years, not only locking in profit margins in the affordable segment but also lowering the overall profitability level of the industry.
Over-reliance on delivery platforms further pressures industry profits. Currently, delivery sales account for over 50% of revenue for leading freshly made beverage brands. Nayuki's Tea's delivery revenue accounted for 52.6% in 2025, exceeding dine-in revenue for the first time. However, the high rents and labor costs associated with large-format stores conflict with the low margins from delivery, creating a severe imbalance between investment and returns.
In stark contrast to the freshly made segment is the vast space and high profitability efficiency of the ready-to-drink market. China's ready-to-drink soft drink market size was approximately 700 billion yuan in 2025 and is expected to increase to 750-780 billion yuan in 2026, offering a large market space with stable growth.
What the general public may not know is that although bottled beverages are low-priced, their profits are far higher than those of freshly made beverages. For a 15 yuan freshly made tea drink, after deducting costs like rent, labor, and delivery, the net profit margin is only 5%-10%. In contrast, a 6 yuan bottled beverage can have a gross profit margin exceeding 60%, with leading brands achieving net profit margins up to 30%. Moreover, as production scales up, marginal costs approach zero.
Furthermore, ready-to-drink products break the time and space constraints of freshly made beverages, covering all daily scenarios such as offices, homes, commuting, and travel, infinitely expanding user reach.
The growth space in the freshly made segment is influencing attitudes in the capital markets. Currently, market valuations for leading ready-to-drink companies are significantly higher than those for comparable freshly made beverage brands (fast-moving consumer goods brands are valued at 20-30 times P/E, while freshly made brands are at 8-12 times P/E). This practical consideration is one of the motivations for freshly made beverage brands to seize shelf space.
**Strengths and Weaknesses in Sharp Contrast**
Freshly made tea and coffee giants have inherent advantages in entering the ready-to-drink market. Strong brand influence is their greatest asset. Hit products like Luckin Coffee's Raw Coconut Latte and Heytea's "Duoruo Grape" have been validated by millions of consumers in stores, enjoying high taste recognition. Industrializing these mature recipes for production allows for rapid productization without additional R&D costs.
Consumer brand recognition also reduces the market education cost for bottled products. Once these products hit the market, they can be quickly identified and accepted by consumers.
The asset-light "contract manufacturing + channel partnership" model provides tea and coffee giants with greater flexibility, allowing them to quickly adjust product taste, pricing, and distribution strategies based on market feedback. Their offline store networks can achieve a two-way synergy between "in-store experience" and "shelf repurchase," forming a unique channel advantage.
Additionally, freshly made beverage brands consistently target young users. They possess precise user insight capabilities, enabling their products to better align with the demands of young consumer groups for health, convenience, and aesthetics, creating clear differentiation from traditional ready-to-drink brands.
However, alongside these strengths, significant weaknesses are equally prominent. Shifting from freshly made to ready-to-drink essentially means crossing from the foodservice sector into the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, which operates under two completely different sets of rules.
In the past, freshly made beverages competed on store operations, new product development, and experiential settings, with consumers paying for immediacy and experience. However, the logic of shelf competition is entirely different: the core lies in cost-effectiveness, channel coverage, terminal sales velocity, and supply chain control. Capabilities such as building a distributor network, negotiating with supermarkets, managing inventory, and handling near-expiry products are precisely the areas where new tea beverage brands are weak.
More critically, freshly made beverage brands lack the channel control capabilities of FMCG players and cannot provide distributors with mature sales support. If bottled products cannot maintain high sales velocity, distributors may abandon the agency in favor of brands with higher profits.
Traditional ready-to-drink giants are clearly not going to let new players easily invade their territory and will inevitably launch a strong, "full-chain suppression" counteroffensive.
Brands like Nongfu Spring, Master Kong, and Nestlé have been deeply entrenched in the ready-to-drink sector for decades, having established mature supply chains and distributor networks. Their channel advantages are difficult to shake.
Simultaneously, traditional giants are accelerating product iteration. Master Kong has launched tea-coffee fusion products, Nestlé is optimizing the taste of its ready-to-drink coffee, and Nongfu Spring is upgrading its "Tan Bing" series, precisely targeting the bottled products of new entrants and creating price pressure across segments.
Even more noteworthy is that the competitive landscape of the ready-to-drink sector is already solidified. Data from Mashangying shows that in 2024, the top five brands (CR5) in the ready-to-drink coffee sector held a combined market share of 85.35%, with Nestlé accounting for about 50%, followed by Starbucks (COSTA), Coca-Cola, Eastroc Beverage, and Master Kong. The CR5 for tea beverages is even higher at 87%. The difficulty for new players to get a piece of the pie is可想而知.
The shelf space battle of 2026 is a trial for freshly made giants transforming from store brands into FMCG brands. The old logic of "opening stores equals growth" has ended. Shelf space has become the new yardstick for measuring brand strength.
In the future, only brands that can simultaneously master both stores and shelves, balance the freshly made experience with ready-to-drink value, and quickly adapt to FMCG rules will be able to navigate cycles and truly establish themselves in the comprehensive beverage arena.
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